Makes me think of a question to ask everyone . Which Civil War personality would you most like to have a conversation with and what would you ask them ? I am still trying to think of which one I would want to talk to, actually I know who I would like to talk to but not sure what question I would ask.

Confederate it would have to be Cleburne or Stuart. I hink I would ask Cleburne being an Irishman that had only lived in the United States for less than 15 years why did he chose to fight and fight on the side of the South. I think I would ask Stuart about the Ride around the Union army.

Union , I would talk to Kit Carson (remember I am a westerner ) I would talk to him about the Long Walk.

In reply to her excellent question, I would like to talk to John Buford. My first question would be why he didn't take better care of himself during those last few months after Gettysburg. Then about the Mormon Expedition, and his adventures in Wyoming. Besides, he was the handsomest hunk on both sides. I would glady spend time with him. :=))

On the gray and butternut side, I believe Joe Johnston would have a lot to say. I admire him because he was given impossible assignments and then was blamed when they didn't succeed. His relations with Davis would be good for, oh, a whole afternoon.

When you talk to Kit, ask him if he minded that Fremont got all the credit as the "Pathfinder." It was Kit, after all, who guided Fremont's expeditions. One expedition Fremont made without Kit, and he got himself lost in the mountains. So much for the Pathfinder. I think that even with a GPS, Fremont could get lost. And, being a guy with HIS attitude, he wouldn't ask for directions. Another :=))

I'd like to sit down to dinner with about six Civil War notables, but maybe Jefferson Davis would be a most interesting if exceedingly frustrating person to interview. I would like to know how he kept on fighting and even planned to mount a partisan war in the woods and mountains after Appomattox when the cost had become so unbearable for his fellow Confederates with starvation, disease, lack of goods and services, a breakdown of institutions and law and order.

What was he still fighting for at that point? If he says it is about states rights, I'd have to ask the states rights to do what exactly? Keep up the institution of slavery? And if it boiled down to slavery, how did he justify that after years of fighting and destruction that laid waste to much of the Confederacy.

I'd like to ask how he justified the desperate measure of arming slaves as soldiers, even when he was told that by doing so the whole reasoning behind slavery was lost. What made him come to that extreme when previously he had rejected the same idea as proposed by the visionary General Patrick Cleburne and ordered that no one speak of such a dangerous thing out loud.

I'd want to know if he could do it all over again, would he have assigned his generals differently, listened to their advice and accepted others ideas or did he still think he was the single best person in the entire Confederacy to manage the war. One last question for Davis...knowing what he knows now...would he have demanded that Confederate leaders sit down at the negotaiting table with their Union counterparts and even if it took a year, work out a peaceful settlement and do whatever it takes to avoid what turned out to be a calamitous war.

would he have demanded that Confederate leaders sit down at the negotaiting table with their Union counterparts and even if it took a year, work out a peaceful settlement and do whatever it takes to avoid what turned out to be a calamitous war.

I think that part of your criticism is unjustified. The federals were there to crush the confederate armies in the field, no negotiations save complete surrender. Thats what the federals wanted, and failure to meet them in battle would have resulted in the occupation of the south by federal armies. If he would have demanded such a thing from his commanders, there could not be any doubt that he would have been thrown out of office very quickly. The same could be said of Lincoln, I believe (and probably with more justification). A longer period of negotatiations could have done no harm, yet despite that fact I believe they would have been fruitless as well (the Confederates were every bit as motivated as their Federal counterparts).

As to the main topic of the post, I believe I would most want to talk to Nathan Bedford Forrest. As arguably the most contoversial and colorful figure of the war, I think talking to him would shed some light on what the man was really like (good and bad).

I would also like to talk to Joshua Chamberlain for the opposite reason as Forrest. Chamberlain was a man who could articulate his feelings as well or better than any other figure in the war. He was also a man of reason, someone who respected his opponent despite his firm belief in the cause he was fighting for.

Polar opposites in many ways, I could gain more knowledge interviewing these two men than by interviewing a large number with like views.

Oh I would have a ton of questions about Kit here in California and how he led Fremont around . Pathfinder yeah. Everytime I drive north though the mountains past Fort Tejon I imagine Kit headed up to Sacramento . Of course I also think of Jedidiah Smith too , my favorite "pathfinder'

Kentucky_Orphan wrote: would he have demanded that Confederate leaders sit down at the negotaiting table with their Union counterparts and even if it took a year, work out a peaceful settlement and do whatever it takes to avoid what turned out to be a calamitous war.

I think that part of your criticism is unjustified. The federals were there to crush the confederate armies in the field, no negotiations save complete surrender. Thats what the federals wanted, and failure to meet them in battle would have resulted in the occupation of the south by federal armies. If he would have demanded such a thing from his commanders, there could not be any doubt that he would have been thrown out of office very quickly. The same could be said of Lincoln, I believe (and probably with more justification). A longer period of negotatiations could have done no harm, yet despite that fact I believe they would have been fruitless as well (the Confederates were every bit as motivated as their Federal counterparts).

Are we talking about the same thing? I was referring to avoiding the war through negotiations. I was referring to Federal government officials and Confederate government officials, not military high command. What I meant and perhaps phrased poorly is might Davis have found in retrospect that it would have been better to avoid the war completely than to have gone through the great cost of the war?

Frankly, I don't think that question is unjustified. It is a question I would like to ask Jefferson Davis if I could. He might tell me in response that he felt the war was worth the cost even though the Confederacy lost, but what is the harm in asking the question? I'd ask it of Lincoln too.

Let's change the phrasing. If either Lincoln or Davis had magically known how long and how costly the war would be, would they have tried harder to avoid it? If Davis answered that, "Oh no, I would have been thrown out of office if I had tried to avoid the war...well, that says something about him too. It says it was more important for him to stay in office than to be expelled for trying to avoid the war." But this is all hypothetical anyway. We can't really know.

Furthermore, in this hypothetical exercise of meeting with someone long dead, I assume one has the right to ask whatever one wants to ask. I Davis draws his saber...then I would be cooked.

Again, I think both would have said yes about negotiations. The reason I think the question is flawed, however, is that both men would have known that there was no way to negotiate out of the problem. By the time Davis was president, the confederate government had been formed and was seperate from the U.S. That was what they were fighting for, and I don't think the confederate government would be willing to negotiate its demise. War could have been avoided, but it would have meant the Confederacy would be allowed to exist. Lincoln, on the other hand, perhaps could have negotiated early wih the first few states that left the Union, but it would meant the continuation of Slavery in the United States and its possible expasnion if there was to be peace.

If your question is simply to reveal the character of the two men, I think it is a fair question. I think both men would answer yes (especially Davis, southerners ended up dieing for what?)

Your whole line of questioning seems to be a criticism of Jefferson Davis, and this is why I responded about your question. The same questions (with exception of picking generals in the west) you ask of Davis you can ask of virtually any confederate. What of Cleburne? He fought for states rights, or the right to keep slaves as you say, despite the fact he mentioned the possibility of arming the slaves.

I have little interest in talking to high muckitty muck politicos... might be that I think few were worth their weight in used cat litter. In fact the only politician from that era that I think I would like to speak w/ would be BlackJack Logan.

I would like to speak w/ NB Forrest just to see if he really has received a raw deal from history as some suspect or if he really was as much of as an SOB as others suggest. Either way he was one hell of a fighting man.

Then their would be Emory Upton. I'd like to speak to him just prior to his graduation from West Point and again just after the ending of the Selma campaign.

Then of coarse there are a few men in the 3rd IA & 4th MN VI's, 4th AL VI and probably a man or two in the 1st TN VI that fill a lifetime of interviews. Sorry if I have a tendency to discount high ranking officers... I come from a long line of enlisted men.

I'm obviously behind in the posting - but you all are giving me great names to read up on!§imone§ays ~ I see a lilly on thy brow, / With anguish moist and fever dew; / And on thy cheek a fading rose / Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads / Full beautiful, a faery's child; / Her hair was long, her foot was light, / And her eyes were wild. - Keats

Come to think of it, I'd be grateful to have the chance to converse with anyone of any rank who was at Gettysburg, Shiloh, Chickamauga, First Bull Run, The Crater, Olustee, Antietam's stone bridge, the fall of Atlanta, Appomattox...actually almost any battle of the war would be instructive.

I'd even appreciate weird "Twilight Zone" things as having Traveler, Lee's horse, talk about the war from a horse's point of view. One of Custer's horses or J.E.B. Stuart's horses could tell some fascinating stories.

Being a MO boy I would like to talk to some of the MO. Border boys, Quantrill , Bill Anderson, to see if they are common outlaws like most think or products of there time like I believe. Joe Shelby and hear some of his exploits , Mosby would fall into the same catagory

Would also like to talk to Forrest for the same reasons as above.

On the Union side I would like to meet Custer just to slap him for what he did to my ancestors LOL but i guess they already did that, So John Buford and Winfeild Hancock.

Johan.. also like you would like to chat with some of the boys under the men above

"On the Union side I would like to meet Custer just to slap him for what he did to my ancestors LOL but i guess they already did that"

Hey Younglobo,

I was laughing mfao at that, then remembered - you're Native American, right? I forgot that.

I had an incredable experience in the Laural Mountains of PA about three years ago right now, working on the filming of "The War that Made America", a PBS documentary of The French and Indian War. I was, seriously, working 20-hour-days, and just cat-napping for sleep the whole 7 weeks.

One of the most important things that I took back with me was making good friends with some of "The Natives" (oh, Dear God, what a terrible joke, please forgive me!), We still exchange cards at Christmastime, and email back and forth.

Also, got a necklace of (faux) wampum presented to me in a ceremony - wowser!!! - won't forget that as long as I live. So real looking that when I wear it out, people who recognize what it is act like I am wearing diamonds and fall all over themselves.

Wow, the Native American guys could have been having a great time, because the local girls were so turned-on by having real, live, hot-blooded NA's in there midst that they were like groupies...and those girls were really frustrated that, for the most part, the NA guys were bored with that sort of stuff, and weren't playing into it.

Also, it was really moving, seeing so many committed men from so many different tribes work together to give the best possible interpretation of those long-lost times.

One of the guys I got closest to there had just had a "Hair-Cutting-Off Ceremony" for his son who was killed in Iraq. So, the make-up poeple had to work with - and around that.

Now, I've hijacked this thread, and I hope everyone forgives me and moves on - but I have been thinking since I recently saw a documentary on Native American's contributions to TWBTS, that we should start a thead about that here.

I think you missed the point , I was going to slap MR. Custer for the bad things they did to the Lakota. But then I thought of what Crazy horse and Red Cloud did to said general and decided that the Lakota did a fine job of slapping him .

LOL

Custers last words "where did all those flippin indians "

LOL

Seriously I would like to have talked to Crazy Horse though , but he dosnt qualify as a civil war personality

point was, your joke made me split my sides. As did your second one about Custer's last words.

Just had the first of three back surguries so I can get off pain-meds once and for all, so - ironically - I'm on more pain meds than ever right now, REALLY down for the count - doesn't make for clear/thinking or writing, I've got to be more careful.

For this PBS documentary "The War that Made America" gig (back before I hurt my back): they had Native Americans from different tribes from all over the US & Canada come in to re-enact the "Indian" part of the French and Indian War.

The native "white" Pennsylvanians in the area were awed by by the influx of Native Americans from all over the North American continent, and it turned into one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

All the reenactors , whether playing French, "Indian", English, or "American" had been relegated to low-budget (money-saving) status, and I was 1/2 of the team that saw to it that were well-feed and other-wise taken care of - which is why I worked so hard that I lost 15 pounds and wandered around in a state of sleep deprivation for 7 weeks. But all the reenactors were so great, I LOVED it and would do it again in a heartbeat!

Now, I will leave talking about it on this thread (BIG HIJACK) - I would love to send you, personally, some pictures and details from the shoot though. Will PM you with them, if you don't mind.

Sorry for being in a "stupid fog", I'll emerge soon.... in the meantime, I think I better go hibernate for awhile until I even think that I know what I am talking about....

I too would have loved to have spent some time talking and learning from Crazy Horse.. who in my opinion is one of the greatest true americans.... Being of some Cherokee thru my ancestors from westen North Carolina, I am proud of that part of my heritage. Would also loved to converse with Stand Watie and his involvement in the war...

I would like to talk to my Greatx5 Grandads William G. Tate and David B. Paschael, the Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1860, all the Cherokee Soldiers at the time of the War, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, R.E.Lee, Braxton Bragg, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and pretty much every other Confederate General, officer and soldier.